


the equation of entertainment

by electricfics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricfics/pseuds/electricfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pippa Hollander is caught in the limelight of both the muggle and wizarding worlds.</p><p>The first, she can't control. Being the daughter of Tracy Hollander, that famous muggle actress, she uses her 9 month "reclusive tutoring in the English countryside" to escape the celebrity status she loathes.</p><p>The second, is completely her fault. Due to a hairbrained plan by her knot of best friends, they've seen to catch the eye of every single Hogwarts student, faculty member, and painting. </p><p>Pippa has a long two years left at school avoiding the headmaster, avoiding the muggle-borns, and especially avoiding the Potters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the equation of entertainment

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all! this is my first hpff work, so if there's any errors or anything you see, PLEASE message me!!  
> feedback is much appreciated.
> 
> xx

 

2022

 

Pippa Hollander plopped herself onto the last empty seat in the compartment with a loud _thud_. She was stressed. In her 16 years of life she had experienced a lot of things that had stressed her out, but nothing like this.

 

Not even the second time she attempted to get her driver’s license back in Rhode Island. Which, in case you’re wondering, she did fail. Not all the times she had to navigate Heathrow airport on her own to get back to England for school every August. Not even when she had caught her boyfriend when she was 14 trying to kiss one of her good friends behind the neighbourhood pool house.

 

“First day paparazzi, Pip?” Walter asked her, sprawled across two seats, popping jelly beans with a sly smirk on his face. “You know, for being the most calm out of all of us most of the time, nothing quite brings me joy like the firsties reaction to you.” He tossed a bean in her direction, which she deftly caught and started chewing on.

 

“A good one, for once,” she commented with a smile, propping her legs up on Annabelle’s lap. Although it was annoying, being the daughter of a famous muggle actress, especially after the few movies she had recently done for younger audiences, she knew she was lucky to be able to escape it all into the countryside for 9 months out of the year. It helped having such a close knit group of friends to rely on.

 

First, there was Rosemary Dean and Walter Quarless, fellow Ravenclaws. There were two Slytherins in the group, Robb and Ross Belby, fraternal twins and always at heads with each other. Lastly, there was Margeaux Trevy, Hufflepuff, and Parker Pickens, Gryffindor. The seven of them had bonded during first year Charms, and had been inseparable ever since. They were also one of the most powerful friend groups in the castle, with Pippa, Robb and Ross being on their respective quidditch teams, Parker and Walter being prefects, and Rosemary and Margeaux’s gossip parchment they released every other week.

 

That being said, they were _one_ of the most powerful friend groups. They had competition with the Potter clan, James, a seventh year, Albus, in their year, Lily, a fourth year, and all of the other Weasley’s that flitted about them. It’s not like Pippa and her friends hated the Potters or anything because of who they were. They just hated them because of who they _were_.

 

Pippa shook awake probably 45 minutes later. She guessed she had fallen asleep mid-conversation with her friends, exhausted from flying from New York and landing in London that morning. However, as it seemed, all of her friends had fallen asleep as well, stretching out and even making poor Parker sleep on the floor (tradition, since she was the single “filthy gryffindor”).

 

Slipping out, and closing the door quietly to make sure not to wake her slumbering friends, she backed up into the hall, attempting to turn around.

 

- _oof!_ -

 

She fell backwards, pushing the poor soul even further back, and eventually on the floor with a painful sounding crash.

 

“Oh my gosh! I am so sor-” she cut herself off, after turning around to see who the victim was. “Actually, Potter, I’m not so sure that wasn’t your fault.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against her compartment door, not offering to help the boy up.

 

“Real proud of that insult, aren’t you Hollander?” he asked, eyes narrowed as he dusted himself off after getting himself up. “Thought a Ravenclaw could do better. “ Pippa rolled her eyes in response, eying her classmate up.

 

“Lovely break, yeah? Especially without you and your gang of family members around in the states.” She almost felt bad picking on Albus. Compared to his older brother, James, who was the resident bad boy and lothario of Hogwarts, Albus was more lanky, bumbling, and overall less intimidating that James. However, he did have quidditch skills, being Gryffindor’s seeker, something James had never been able to amount to much at.  

 

“You’re from America, PIppa? I never knew that.” Albus replied, with what almost sounded like interest.

 

“Sorry I haven’t ever told you my life story, Albus. I forgot how good of friends we were,” she responded, voice dripping in  sarcasm.  

 

“I just- You know- It’s just, like, since you’re gonna be doing rounds with me and all, I thought we’d just get past, like, all that old stuff,”  Albus tripped over his words, eyebrows scrunched in thought.

 

“Rounds?” Pippa’s head was turned to the side, kind of like a little puppy, Albus noted, not something he’d ever tell her. She may have looked like a puppy, but she was more like a grown rottweiler, mainly only to him and his family, though.

 

“You didn’t get all those owls?” Albus was running his hands through his thick hair now, a habit she might find endearing on anyone else. Shaking her head quickly to rid the thoughts of her brown-eyed nightmare, she returned her consciousness to the conversation.

 

“What owls? Most owls I know can’t travel across the Pacific.”

 

“Pippa,” he started slowly, almost unsure of what words to use. “Brehany Salts, your prefect, she, um,” he looked thoughtfully as if choosing his next words carefully. “she decided to transfer to Beauxbatons after that nasty scandal with that quidditch assistant coach…”

 

“Oh, you mean the 30 year old Ravenclaw-grad who never seemed to leave? The one she’d hook up with in the broom closet?”

 

“Yeah, that one,” he seemed frustrated by her interruption, something Pippa grabbed a little pride from. “You really didn’t know they appointed you in her old position?”

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“Oh my goodness, that makes so much sense. Yasmine was going to rip off your head when she finally found you. You weren’t responding to any of the scheduling letters or anything, so she finally just paired you with me.”

 

“And why would she think that’s a good idea?” Pippa asked incredulously, still trying to grasp the idea that she was going to be the Ravenclaw prefect. She’d been satisfied when she hadn’t received it the year before, knowing that extra free time she had could be used for her studies.

 

“Well, I’m reckoning she did it as kind of punishment.” Albus half laughed at that, knowing that in Yasmine’s revenge, she’d sort of screwed him over in the end, as well. Pippa had hated him since about a week into first year, and he never really knew why. He’d normally just assume James had made a scorned lover out of her, but she’d started hating him at 11, when James was 12, and he hadn’t exactly decided he liked girls over wizards chess then.

 

“I’m going to tear that girl to shreds. What compartment, I know you know.”

 

“Three down on the left. Don’t tell her I told you!” he said, running off to find his knobs of friends, she assumed. “Bye partner!” And with a cheeky grin, she was finally rid of Potter.

 

An hour later, she returned to her compartment with a new shiny badge, a bit of fire still in her after a heated argument with Yasmine, the head girl. (“I live in _America_ , Yasmine. If you even checked my file you would know it takes a bit more effort than sending an _owl_ to me. It’s a whole _ocean_ apart. Not like a _Gryffindor_ like you would know anything about that.”) Of course, of all houses, the head girl had to be a Gryffindor this year. Even a Slytherin would have been better.

 

“So, Walt, Parker, looks like you have a new fellow prefect,” she said, interrupting their conversation. It didn’t look like they were that involved in it anyway, probably just catching up on the who-did-who from over the summer.

 

“I wondered if you were ever going to bring that up, or if you were simply ashamed to be paired with my, Pip,” Walter drawled lazily, chewing on something and reading the newspaper. He didn’t even look up to speak to her, that pompous git.

 

“Well I didn’t exactly know until Potter told me an hour ago. Head girl was trying to send owls to me. While I was in America. Across the ocean.”

 

“Oh, rough time, mate,” Margeaux piped up. “Which Potter did you hear it from?”

 

“Albus.”

 

“Could have been worse, James has a much bigger ego.”

 

Parker lifted her head up from where she was using Ross’s legs as a pillow. “Yes, but he’s much more attractive.”

 

Margeaux scoffed. “He’s so _expected_. Personally I think Al is more different attractive, which is much more in right now.”

 

“I think they’re both twats.” Rosemary huffed. “And both unfairly fit.”

 

“You’re just mad James never contacted you after you drunken escapade in the Potions classroom,” Pippa laughed, settling into an open spot in the sea of tangled, lanky teenage limbs.

 

“Care to chat about something other than the Potter boys dashing good looks, girls?” Ross scoffed while Robb scrunched his nose.

 

“What about Brehany’s staff sex scandal?” Pippa brought up. “Kind of proud it’s one of our own for once.”

 

“I really wonder what happens to all of those letters we try to owl to you, Pip,” Walter spit, and the group erupted into laughter. The rest of the ride was spent changing into robes, hitting the boys when they tried to sneak peeks, and reminiscing on the havoc they had wreaked in previous years, and how they could top it.

  
  


 

 

The first years had been sorted, the headmaster’s speech had been spoken, and finally the meal appeared. As Rosemary began to pour pumpkin juice into everyone’s chalices, however, Walter began running up to the two girls.

 

“Where were you, Walt? Figured you had snuck to the Slytherin table,” Pippa asked the panting boy.

 

“It’s our turn, Pip, Rose, we have to get the group together.” he replied, breathing heavily every few words.

 

“Our turn for what, exactly?” Rosemary joined in, stabbing into her green beans afterwards.

 

“You know that crew of seventh years, last year of course, the ones who always planned the schoolwide entertainment?”

 

“The kids who threw the parties?”

 

“Yes, well, I was going around, taking a census of the current Hogwarts population - ickle firsties not included - and realized the current seventh year class as a whole, sadly, has a lacking _cool factor_.”

 

“Cool factor? Jesus, Walt, this isn’t a teen movie,” Rosemary sighed.

 

“Whatever. But as it is, there’s no solid group of friends nor anyone savvy enough to throw parties for the whole school. So, after some solid calculations using a formula I created fourth year, it’s undoubtedly our turn to take control.”

 

“What about the Potter clan?” Pippa asked, sipping thoughtfully at her juice. “But you do have a point. Now that I think about it, the seventh years have never really been that great.”

 

“Minus James, of course.”

 

“Rosemary, you’re really going to have to get over that,” Walter rolled his eyes at his redhead friend. “Besides, you look so much like a Weasley he might just assume you’re his cousin. But, Pippa, your recent ascension to prefectshood, as shocking as it might be, has tipped us over from being tied with them to being the undoubtable number one.”

 

“Spoken like a true Ravenclaw. And we could use Margeaux and Rosemary’s gossip rag - no offense Rose - to spread news of the parties, we created the dissolving parchment years ago, you, Park and I can help control them not getting caught, and we’ve got quidditch players on two teams that can help attract people to come.”

 

“We have this in the bag,” Walter grinned, placing his arms behind his head and leaning back. He looked between his two best friends on the other side of the table from him. “Are you in this with me or not?”

  
  
  


 

“We do not have this in the bag,” Margeaux whined, dropping her head down onto the table. The seven had crowded into a table in the back of the Three Broomsticks. “We have to throw this party tonight, mind you all, and we have nothing set.”

 

“Got it! Back to school summer bonanza. Hula skirts, beachy drinks, skimpy clothes only. Last chance to show your tan summer bod before the paleness of the English countryside takes over. Throw it in that room by the kitchen we had them sometimes last year, since you can’t really hear the noise once you’ve used a few muffling charms over the kitchen.”

 

“Genius, Robb. Margeaux, Rosemary, send out to each common room for a money collection, the usual drill, so we can get arseloads of fruit and that coconut rum, we’ll just recruit some seventh year Ravenclaws to buy for us,” Parker set into organization mode, whipping out orders.

 

“Perfect, Park. The Ravenclaws will find it much more logical than us trying to use fake identification. For music, should we just get that one Hufflepuff who practically summers at Funky Buddha to DJ?” Pippa asked, picking the nail varnish off as she planned her outfit for the night.

 

“It’s all set,” Parker tapped her hands on the table. “Everyone get to work and we’ll report back in an hour in the kitchens. It’ll be much better to ask the elves to make some food if we all ask together.”

  
  
  


 

The party had been planned and set into action. Pippa laid spread eagle on her bed, staring up at her canopy. The dark blue of Ravenclaw made it seem like the night sky, something she was extremely thankful for. Imagine the burning sky effect being a Gryffindor would look like. Her sarong and strappy bikini sat on her trunk, with strappy sandals on the floor next to it. Being friends with Margeaux, the girl who brought about 8 trunks to school every semester, paid off at times like this. She had two hours before she figured she should get ready, and she had no intention of running into any of her friends. She’d completed all her tasks; getting the older (and of legal age) kids to buy their alcohol, asking the creepy club kid to DJ, and making sure every common room had been updated about the night’s activities.

 

Figuring she’d rather be mobile than spending two hours laying staring up at her fabric, she popped up, slipped on her pair of birkenstocks, and strolled out of her room and to the owlery.

 

She wasn’t alone when she finally climbed all the stairs, a little out of breath, having not taken anything besides an elevator back in New England. Messy black hair stuck out at all angles on the back of the boy’s head, and the boy wore dark jeans with a Brazilian quidditch team long sleeve t shirt.

 

“Hey, Al,” she half-whispered, striding up to him to check up on her owl, Nadine. Albus Potter jumped slightly at the words, more surprised by someone being there on the first night of school than by the person being her.

 

“Hollander, always a pleasure,” he nodded his head down at her, standing inches taller than her thin and stretched out frame. “To be frank, I’m actually excited for your party tonight.”

 

“I don’t see you as the type to enjoy a fancy dress party, Albus,” she teased, almost about to knock hips with him, like she would any of her other friends, but she stopped herself.

 

“I don’t think you’ve taken much time to get to know me at all, Pippa,” he remarked softly, feeding a treat to his family owl.

 

“That’s not quite fair, Potter. I know you play quidditch,” she replied, widening her eyes at him.

 

“Well, yes. Because we play each other. And play the same positions.”

 

“I know you have a pet ferret, Babette,” she said with a cheeky smile, her dimple popping in her pointy cheek. Before he could speak, she kept talking. “I know you are usually quiet, but seem to be insufferably bratty and loud around me, for some reason. I know you have never had a girlfriend, at least not at Hogwarts. And I know you hate treacle tart.”

 

“I might have to assume you’ve been stalking me these past five years, Pippa,” he joked, leaning back against the stone wall.

 

Pippa looked out the window, enjoying the summer breeze up in the elevation. “I might have to assume you’ve been underestimating my observation skills,” she bit back, petting her owl once more before grabbing a stack of letters she’d never received and turning back down the stairs.

  
  
  


It was Monday morning. The group of friends sat at one table, seeing as they didn’t sit divided by house except on special occasions.

 

“I feel like I’ve been splinched,” Ross retorted into his porridge.

 

“You can talk. I kissed Robb last night,” Margeaux groaned, pouring more coffee into her mug. “No offense, Robb.”

 

“None taken, Marg. Gossipy Hufflepuff, while being advantageous as a friend, never was my type of girl I looked for.” Robb’s curly hair looked extremely unkempt today.

 

“Well I, for one, had fun!” Pippa cheered. “I think we did pretty well for our first extravaganza.”

 

“Technically, Pippa, it was a bonanza,” Walter crooned, sounding almost in pained.

 

“God, Walter, even hungover as you are, you still manage to never ever stop sounding like a Ravenclaw,” Rosemary joked, clinking her mug with Pippa’s and toasting to their friends. “On to the next one!”

 

“On to the next one!”

  
  


And so the first day classes went as they usually did for Hogwarts students over 14. Hungover, hectic, and hazy. It was a constant struggle of trying to seem cool enough to not be looking at her timetable every five seconds and getting to the right class at the right time for Pippa. Since she was a sixth year, it wasn’t any new classes this semester, just more ongoing torture of what she’d already spent five years trying to learn.

 

Transfiguration was the most interesting part of her day, something she enjoyed telling her friends as they sat down for lunch.

 

“Guess who wouldn’t stop staring at me today in transfig, Parker,” Pippa grinned, taking a bite out of her chicken.

 

“That creep, Thomas Oddball, or whatever? The Huff who’s been in love with you ever since he found out you were an American celebrity?”

 

“Don’t use that word, gosh,” Pippa huffed, rolling her eyes and continuing. “Finnegan Bruss.”

 

“No!” Margeaux half-whispered. “We thought he was gay, he hasn’t shown interest in a girl since like fourth year.”

 

“Why, exactly, are we so worked up about Finnegan Bruss? He’s an alright lad, but, like, nothing special…” Robb asked, quirking his head at Margeaux, who was beet red and on the verge of hyperventilating.

 

“Nothing special?” Rosemary screeched, only to have half the table they were at stare at her. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Finnegan Bruss has been labeled ‘hottest bachelor’ by Basic Witch every single year he has been here. Even when he was a first year.”

 

“His parents are like, supermodels, or something,” Ross added with a careless flick of the hand. “He’s really self conscious about it, like people only like him because he’s pretty.”

 

“How in Merlin’s name do you know this?” Margeaux breathed out, jotting the new information on her napkin.

 

“We’ve had Muggle Studies together every year, ladies. If only you hadn’t considered it a ‘useless subject’,” he made pointed looks at Margeaux, Parker, and Rosemary. “Or a ‘waste of time seeing as you spent your childhood living it’,” he made another pointed look at Pippa. She tried to start talking, but he cut her off. “Finnegan and I have been good mates for years now. I’ve visited him on weekends on summer holidays, he summers in Paris. I know his mum and dad, good blokes, if not a bit off their rockers.” As he listed all these things off, all four girls seemed to instinctually rest their heads in their hands, leaning in closer to him.

 

“You girls are animals!” Robb scoffed. “You don’t even know anything about this poor boy.”

 

“That’s the point,” Pippa responded. “He’s such a mystery. And he was looking at me!” She thought for a moment. “Hey! Did he even come to our party?”

 

“Bonanza,” Walter corrected.

 

“Oh hush, Walter,” Rosemary said while pulling out a piece of parchment from her bag. “I was taking lists of all of the hot guys there, just to see a list of numbers and figure out what friend groups we need to market to, and I don’t think he did.”

 

“He’s not really much of a partier,” Ross explained.

 

“Ross, I really am so glad we’re friends,” Margeaux said, wrapping him in a hug as he tried to fight it off. The group of friends dissolved into laughter, only to have Parker remind them of the time. They all hastily grabbed their bags, having been so deep in discussion that they hadn’t noticed the Great Hall clearing out.

 

 


End file.
